ALWAYS REFORMING: A sinner saved by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone adhering to Scripture alone to bring about reform personally, for his family, church, and world to the glory of God alone.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Well, then I get all excited. I'm like Jojo the idiot circus boy with a pretty new pet.

I'm starting to get really whipped by exclamation point abuse. I share two recent instances.

1. My wife was perusing houses via the miracle of the Internet, not so much because we want to move, but it's sort of her hobby.

In one she sent me I found the following description noteworthy.

THIS HOME HAS ONE OF THE BEST YARDS IN [town]! SO MANY TREES! VIEW OF GOLF COURSE FROM JUST ABOUT EVERY WINDOW IN THE HOUSE! UPDATED POOL WITH A IRON FENCE! ABSOLUTELY BREATH TAKING! IT ALSO HAS AN AWESOME HOUSE ATTACHED TO IT TOO! AND THERE IS A THREE CAR GARAGE! KITCHEN HAS GRANITE COUNTERTOPS! NEW CARPET AND PAINT!

In case you're keeping score, that's eight (8) exclamation points in that terse bit of text. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that's excessive and trying too hard.

2. Today I got a note from school about my kid's "Winter Party," which included a solicitation from the Room Mom for some cag for the party, including milks.

This caught my eye:

"The milk is to be purchased directly from the cafeteria by the parent who wants to donate it just before the party!!"

I thought to myself, "Self, I can understand bolding the text, but is it really an exclamation? If so, does it need two (2) exclamation points?"

Anyway, what's up with that? One should be enough and I've seen three exclamation points, but rarely do you see two.

"The milk is to be purchased directly from the cafeteria by the parent who wants to donate it just before the party!!" Every mom who reads a sentence like this knows that the inflection is at the end of the sentence and denotes, "Please, Somebody, step forth and buy the milk!"